The Granada Theatre will ring with holiday spirit Saturday evening with the Kansas Concert Opera’s “A KCO Christmas” and it promises something for everybody.
The program is set up to mimic a live radio show, said Antonia Felix, the writer of the show and author of nonfiction works including biographies of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush. Felix also performs operatic soprano throughout the United States and Europe.
“It’s a variety show for the holidays with vocals singing some beautiful Christmas music with instrumental solos,” Felix said. “In additional to the music we will have some interesting narratives.”
Among the variety acts are Christmas songs performed by Joseph Mahowald, soprano Andrea Garritano, mezzo-soprano Meghan Dieter and bass-baritone Stanford Felix; a comedy skit in the spirit of an old-time radio show; holiday brass music by the Flint Hills Brass Quintet; a performance by 14-year-old violin virtuoso Jonathan Dawson; and an appearance by Emporian William Allen White, played by actor Jack Wright.
“...Which brings back to the stage he inaugurated at its opening in 1929,” Antonia Felix said.
Mahowald is from New York and starred in Jekyll & Hyde, Les Miserables and The Pirate Queen. The show will be emceed by Kansas Public Radio’s Laura Lorson. Lorson also will read an original essay she wrote about growing up in Kentucky. She wrote an essay specifically for the program in Emporia, Felix said. There also will be a Pearl Harbor remembrance piece.
“There is something for everybody,” Felix said.
Tickets can be purchased at the Emporia Arts Commission, 618 Commercial St., or by phone, 343-6473; The Sweet Granada, 805 Commercial St.; and the Granada Coffee Company, 809 Commercial St.